Focus on Louise Brooks (1925–1927) Coming to Blu-ray from Flicker Alley This January
Flicker Alley is releasing Focus on Louise Brooks (1925–1927) on region-free Blu-ray this January, presenting a curated look at the actor’s earliest screen performances. The set is also the first entry in the Flicker Fusion line, a new series dedicated to newly restored and fragmentary films from the silent and early sound era.
Film Overviews
Focus on Louise Brooks assembles four early titles that chart Louise Brooks’ emergence as one of the most magnetic figures of 1920s cinema.
Her screen debut appears in Herbert Brenon’s The Street of Forgotten Men (1925). The melodrama follows Mary Vanhern, played by Mary Brian, who rises above a difficult childhood in New York’s Bowery district only to have her past resurface. Brooks appears briefly in an uncredited scene, but even this short appearance hints at the charisma that would soon define her stardom.
The film has been newly restored from a 35mm nitrate negative preserved at the Library of Congress, and its missing second reel has been reconstructed using production stills and dialogue based on the original script held by the New York Public Library. The feature includes a musical score by Stephen Horne.
The collection also preserves all surviving material from Paramount’s American Venus (1926), a beauty contest comedy that gave Brooks her first substantial role opposite Ford Sterling and Lawrence Gray, alongside 1925 Miss America Fay Elinora Lanphier and a young Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The set includes trailers, test footage, and a Technicolor fragment.
In Alfred Santell’s Coney Island–set rom-com Just Another Blonde (1926), Brooks plays against type as bookish Diana O’Sullivan opposite Dorothy Mackaill. Five of the film’s six reels survive, offering an important look at Brooks in a lighter comedic mode.
The final title in the set is Now We’re in the Air (1927), a World War I aviation comedy from Frank R. Strayer. Brooks plays twin sisters Griselle and Grisette opposite Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton. Only Grisette’s material still exists today, preserved in a 22-minute sequence.
Together, these films present a rare opportunity to follow Brooks from cameo appearances to more prominent roles during her formative years at Paramount.
Bonus Features
- Restoration Demo — A look at the painstaking process that went into preserving the films included in this set
- Audio Commentaries — Pamela Hutchinson on The Street of Forgotten Men; Thomas Gladysz and Kathy Rose O’Regan on Just Another Blonde; and Gladysz and Robert Byrne on American Venus and Now We’re in the Air
- Looking at Lulu — An extended featurette on Louise Brooks hosted by Pamela Hutchinson
- Image Galleries — Featuring production stills and promotional material
- Booklet Insert — Includes an essay by Thomas Gladysz and restoration notes by Rob Byrne
- English closed captioning plus subtitle tracks in English, Spanish, French, and German
Release Date and Availability
Flicker Alley will release Focus on Louise Brooks (1925–1927) on January 13, 2026. It is currently available to pre-order on flickeralley.com.
This release follows Flicker Alley’s recent Blu-ray of Lon Chaney’s He Who Gets Slapped (1924), another silent film classic.
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